Spacewalking astronauts attach micrometeoroid shields to ISS

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station took a
spacewalk on 20 August, to hang micrometeoroid
debris shields on one of the station's modules. It will help
protect the lab from the threat of space junk.

Expedition 32 commander Gennady Padalka and flight engineer Yuri
Malenchenko installed the 2.54 cm-thick shields on the Russian
Zvezda service module. US compartments, on the other hand, launched
with protective shields in place.

Space debris has been a problem for the space station. In
January, the crew made a rare manoeuvre to dodge a 10cm piece of old satellite. In June
2011, the crew retreated into evacuation pods as a piece of junk floated
worryingly close to the station.

Also during the nearly six-hour excursion, the veteran Russian
astronauts moved the Strela-2 cargo boom from the Pirs docking
compartment to the Zarya module. Pirs will eventually be undocked
and disposed of, to make room for a new Russian multipurpose
laboratory module.

This was the 163rd spacewalk in support of the station. The next, a six and a half
hour walk to be conducted on 30 August, will see astronauts
replacing a faulty power relay unit, rig up some power cables,
replace a failing robotic arm camera and install a thermal cover on
a docking port.